


De Novo

by baggvinshield



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Discussion of hypothetical murder, Finger Sucking, First Time, Hand Jobs, M/M, Murder Husbands, Post-Episode: s03e13 The Wrath of the Lamb, Post-Season/Series 03, Vulnerable Hannibal, Will does not have a sexuality crisis, Will-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-10
Updated: 2015-12-10
Packaged: 2018-05-06 01:38:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5398013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/baggvinshield/pseuds/baggvinshield
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><br/>Will figures they’ve danced around this long enough. </p><p>(In which Hannibal is uncharacteristically unwilling to push boundaries, and Will thinks he understands why.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	De Novo

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first fic in this fandom, so, um, Hello! Will and Hannibal's murderous love has made a home in my heart, what can I say.
> 
> Many thanks to Alaina (filiandkiliheirsofdurin) for the speedy beta and the encouragement.
> 
> I have a hannigram sideblog on tumblr now, @dolcewill if you wanna hang out with me there and wait for s4.

 

 

Will figures they’ve danced around this long enough. Despite all prior evidence to the contrary, Hannibal seems unwilling and unlikely to be the one to push the boundaries of their relationship any further. It’s a far cry from the man who drugged Will, psychologically manipulated him, framed him, and then nearly gutted him; but, Will thinks with some small amount of bitterness, if this is a lesson Hannibal has learned, it’s come with a price. Even the Devil must pay something for his sins, it seems. And as it turns out, Hannibal is not the Devil, nor is he God, but rather just a stitched up patchwork piece of Will’s very human soul.

Whatever that may mean for Will, he can’t say. But he knows what he wants, and he knows what he sees in Hannibal’s eyes. He saw it tonight, as they had dinner in the little kitchen of the house they live in together. Even a task as domestic as sharing the washing up after a meal has been fraught with nearly palpable tension, and still Hannibal keeps his distance.

Will thinks he knows why. Or that he’s at least beginning to be able to make an educated guess. The key to this puzzle lies in something Will already knew - that if he utterly rejected Hannibal, Hannibal would quit running, full-stop, and give himself over to stasis and incarceration rather than risk Will losing track of him in the wide world, or risk Will choosing to ignore his existence.

Will doubts that Hannibal is willing to face another rejection, but no matter how far into Hannibal’s mind he can get, no matter how much of Hannibal’s thought processes he can adopt as his own, it’s all always been fuzzy and blurred where Hannibal’s thoughts and feelings about Will are concerned. Will used to think he must have been projecting too much, finding parallels in their feelings for each other because so much of them ran parallel in the first place. Then he doubted his own feelings for Hannibal, fearing instead that he was only feeding off of what his empathy told him Hannibal felt for him. But then they’d killed together, and instead of feeling like an extension of Hannibal himself, Will had felt like they were a pack - equals, two parts creating a greater whole, and not a puppeteer and a puppet afterall.

Ever since their embrace on the bluff, Hannibal hasn’t laid a finger on him in any circumstances outside of what was medically necessary. Will, in contrast, has been reaching out to Hannibal ever since. In the stolen truck they used to make their shivering, freezing getaway, hurtling down the highway, Hannibal had hunched sideways, clearly in pain, his breathing ragged. “Are you alright?” Will had asked, high on adrenaline and barely feeling his own wounds.

“Fine,” had been Hannibal’s panted response, and obviously a lie. Overcome with fear that after all this, he might actually lose Hannibal to something as mediocre as death by blood loss, Will had reached out across the bench seat in the pick-up and bunched up the sleeve of Hannibal’s sweater in his fingers. He’d held on, and he feels like he’s been holding on to just that amount of contact ever since.

They sit together now on the sofa, and Will feels bold. He slides closer to Hannibal, sits up taller and leans into his space, angles his body so that Hannibal is in effect beneath him. He moves slowly and purposefully, as though trying not to startle a frightened animal - though which of them he’s putting in the effort for, he isn’t sure. Will’s knee presses into Hannibal’s thigh, and he grabs the back of the sofa with one arm for leverage. Hannibal uncrosses his legs, and Will thinks it looks odd, that Hannibal could at once appear so casual and yet so on edge.

Will lifts his hand and places it firmly in the center of Hannibal’s chest. He’s warm, and watching Will intently, expression a mixture of curiosity and wonder and (likely forced) bemusement. Will strokes the fabric of Hannibal’s shirt gently, rubbing small circles with his fingers.

“Do you trust me?”

“Not entirely.”

Will lets his hand fall away, lays it on his own leg instead. Hannibal’s response is pitched low, the small quiver in his voice the most undone Will’s ever heard him. It’s such a little thing, this reaction Will can illicit, and in any other it would be disappointingly bland - but this is Hannibal, who never gives anything away he doesn’t want to, to whom everything is a game and everyone either a pawn or an opponent. And Will knows him well enough to know he’s restraining himself, unsure, and yet still, his voice wavers ever so slightly. It’s enough.

“You don’t plan to kill me.” Will’s voice barely lifts in a question.

“I find I prefer the world with you in it. No, Will, I don’t plan to kill you.” With his eyes impossibly soft, Hannibal bends his neck back just a bit, pressing the back of his head into the cushion, offering more of his throat to Will’s view. His eyes look up into Will’s. “You don’t trust me,” he says without accusation.

Will smiles, feeling it pull at the healing wound on his cheek, and shifts ever closer.

“I trust you to be exactly as you are. But I think… I think I see more of the truth of you now, at least where it concerns me. You won’t kill me. Not any time soon, anyway.” Will shifts a bit closer, pressing his knee further into Hannibal’s side, wanting to know, curious to see what else Hannibal might do, what he’ll allow, how deep his ache goes. And because this is what Will wants too, and since death didn’t see fit to claim them in the freezing Atlantic, he might as well accept what fate has given him back.

“I don’t want to kill you,” Hannibal repeats, and with his eyes unlidded and his voice soft like a whisper, Will knows it’s honesty he’s hearing. “But do you still want to kill me?”

“No.” Will surprises even himself with the swiftness of his answer. He retreats a bit, looks down at his hand splayed across his own thigh. He considers the truth of his words and finds that his instinct to answer in the negative hadn’t been false, and that if he were to study his past self from an objective viewpoint, he’d find that even in his most enraged moments, he’d never actually wanted to kill Hannibal. _You couldn’t kill him, you couldn’t watch him die._

“But if you did,” Hannibal presses on, voice still quiet, and full of something Will can’t identify for a lack of reference. “If your intentions changed again, would you still want to do it with you hands?”

Will looks back and meets his gaze, and finds there the answer to the riddle of the strange quality in Hannibal’s voice - it's hope, and longing, and something akin to fear, something that looks like Hannibal’s eyes in his kitchen on that horrible night, something like the tender pained way Hannibal had retreated from Will’s home before he’d turned himself in to the authorities and thrown all his life away. There’s the part of himself that Hannibal cannot, or perhaps will not, hide from Will any longer, whether because he finds the exercise too difficult or because he no longer finds value in it; but there it is, and Will knows that Bedelia had been right, Hannibal is in love with him, and for a moment he feels sympathy for the monster seated next to him that never learned properly how to value another even half as highly as himself. What pains the Devil has suffered, what unlooked for and unprepared for hurts he’s had to endure. Will couldn’t have prevented any of it, he knows, but acknowledging all the unseen wounds he’s caused Hannibal, all the ways in which he’s cut into him more cruelly than Hannibal’s knife ever could have achieved, makes Will feel tender, raw.

He knows that this has always been there in front of him, but he couldn’t see.

He leans far forward, seeking a point of contact to ground himself, and rests his forehead against Hannibal’s. It’s more intimate than a kiss, and Hannibal’s sharp intake of breath, surprised, makes Will’s throat feel tight. How he’s been longed for…

“You already know how I would do it,” Will whispers, knowing that his breath ghosts over Hannibal’s lips. “Because I already tried. If I wanted to kill you, if I decided to do it, I would take us together.”

Will watches Hannibal’s eyes fall closed. “Dear Will,” he says, uttered like a prayer.

Will gives up on what’s left of pretense and slides over into Hannibal’s lap, a bit awkward because of the arm of the couch next to them, but Hannibal, eyes still closed as though this might all be a dream that will slip away if he opens them, shifts to make room for Will’s clumsy limbs. The insides of Will’s thighs press tight to the outside of Hannibal’s, and even through the layers of their clothing it feels to Will like his skin is burning. It’s the hot grasp of bloody hands fisted in sweaters on the bluff, an electric feeling of rightness that was always there simmering beneath Will’s skin when they touched, unacknowledged, but always right there.

Will can no longer separate Hannibal’s desperation from his own, tuned as his empathy is to Hannibal’s emotional state.

“Tell me you’ve wanted this.”

Hannibal opens his eyes in response, and the hunger Will sees there is answer enough.

He closes the gap between them, presses his mouth to Hannibal’s, finds his lips softer than he’d assumed they would be. Hannibal makes a low needy noise as Will licks into his mouth, prying it open with his own, and finally his hands move, curling into Will’s back, stroking up his sides and back down to dip under the hem of his shirt. Will’s hard in moments, just from kissing, and even if he couldn’t feel it he would know that Hannibal is, too.

Will pulls back from the kiss and on impulse, slips a finger into Hannibal’s mouth. Hannibal looks not the least bit offended, not even surprised but infinitely pleased, and his eyes are dark as he closes his lips slowly around Will’s skin. When Hannibal sucks greedily, Will feels an answering jolt of arousal shoot straight to his cock.

“ _God_ , Hannibal.”

Will pushes his finger in farther, feels the hard edges of Hannibal’s teeth, the soft corners of his mouth - this mouth ripped out a man’s throat, and Will hopes Hannibal understands better his answer to the question of trust as he willingly presses his own flesh into it. Hannibal moans, low, and his hands grab at the scant flesh at Will’s hips. Will is panting, fighting the urge to grind his cock down into Hannibal’s, can feel his arousal so close to his own.

He pulls his finger free, sees that it glistens wetly, and leans back in to kiss at Hannibal’s mouth again, press lips and mouth to his cheekbones, suck along his jaw. Hannibal lays his head back all the way, giving Will all the access he could want, baring his throat entirely in an unmistakable gesture of submission and confidence; but Will knows it isn’t so much that Hannibal knows Will won’t hurt him, it’s that Hannibal doesn’t actually care if he does. He would let him, and although Will isn’t interested in hurting Hannibal, not now, knowing that he could is equally arousing and concerning.

Hannibal’s breathing is getting labored, his chest rising and falling more dramatically and rapidly than Will has ever seen. That he can be the one to do this to Hannibal, to pull at the seams of him until he begins to unravel, is too much. Will can’t ignore his own aching cock any longer, and he wants to feel Hannibal in this new way.

Will fumbles with his own flies first, leans up to push his pants down just far enough, and then Hannibal’s surging up to kiss him again, sucking on Will’s bottom lip, and it’s a distraction but Will manages to open Hannibal’s pants as well. He wraps a hand around Hannibal’s cock, hard and already leaking, and Hannibal moans into his mouth, his pleasure so bright Will thinks he might come without even touching himself, without Hannibal touching him either.

He balances precariously so he can take their cock together in two hands, and the dry-wet slide between them is painfully arousing. This isn’t going to last, and when Hannibal whimpers against his lips Will knows that there is no way, no way he is going to let this go now that he has it.

It’s too good, too much, to be kissing Hannibal and feeling this at the same time, their pleasure washing over him in a feedback loop, so Will turns his head to suck at Hannibal’s throat again, at his pulse point, in the hollow there. His lips close over skin already damp from his own breath, and he sucks with the intention of bringing blood to pool just under the surface, leaving a mark. He works his hands between them, feels Hannibal’s thighs twitching against his own.

Blood and breath, Will thinks, and as he sucks Hannibal’s skin into his mouth and nibbles at it, he knows that this, too, is part of what fuels his becoming.

“Will.” Hannibal’s voice sounds like plea, so Will works his hands faster, rolls and bucks his hips. Hannibal grabs at his shoulders, moves his hands up through Will’s hair. When his fingers find Will’s neck he barely touches, and then he cups Will’s face with such tenderness Will can hardly stand it.

“I won’t break,” he gasps, “Hannibal, you can touch me,” and Hannibal locks their mouths together again, fingertips pressing almost painfully into Will’s cheeks, and shudders beneath him. The hot wetness pulsing over Will’s fingers undos him. His own orgasm feels almost anti climactic by comparison, caught up as he is in the thrall of watching and feeling Hannibal in his pleasure. They kiss through their trembling, finally breaking away to breathe.

Hannibal looks wrecked, his hair, longer now, sticking up in the back where he’d pressed into the sofa cushion. His face is slack, mouth slightly open, eyes shining.

“What a mess,” Will says after a time, and a strangled sound escapes his throat, sounding dangerously like a giggle.

Hannibal hums in agreement, but looks up at Will with a small smile.

Will’s legs feel rubbery. He climbs off of Hannibal, slumps into the sofa next to him, stretches out his aching muscles and tucks himself back into his pants. Hannibal does the same, but it seems he isn’t willing to let go of their physical contact so quickly, and he takes Will’s hand in his own. There’s a shyness to the action that makes warmth seep through Will’s chest, and it isn’t lost on him that apparently his point has been made.

“Let’s get cleaned up,” Will suggests.

 

They end up in Hannibal’s bedroom. Will lets himself in, forces himself not to hesitate uncertainly in the doorway. Before they’d found this house, they’d slept side-by-side together for weeks while they ran. But somehow, forced closeness in dingy motel rooms didn’t feel intimate in the way this does, standing in Hannibal’s bedroom in his sleep clothes while Hannibal finishes washing up in his bathroom.

Hannibal emerges, stops in his tracks, and looks surprised for just a moment before he smiles, small and slow. He goes to what is apparently his side of the bed and turns the covers down, nodding towards the other side, which is all the invitation Will needs to climb in. He hits the lights and pads on bare feet back to the bed, and slips under the sheets.

They lay side-by-side, both on their backs. Will wants to break this silence, shatter it like one of the teacups Hannibal is so fond of.

“I meant what I said.” Will smiles broadly, uncaring that it hurts his face to do so. He turns his head to look at Hannibal. “You can touch me. I won’t tell you no.”

Hannibal looks at him, then breaks eye contact, purses his lips together. Some aborted response gets caged behind his teeth, and Will thinks that’s new, too, in its way. Hannibal is still treading what he must think is dangerous ground; or perhaps thin ice would be a better metaphor.

“I chose this, Hannibal,” Will says softly, sobering in the face of Hannibal’s obvious continued reluctance to believe he’s wanted this, too.

“I didn’t expect you to.”

Will’s laugh surprises them both. “Is that what’s bothering you? That you couldn’t predict this? I thought you said you could never predict me. Could whisper through the chrysalis, but never anticipate the creation.” Will rolls to his side, facing Hannibal.

Hannibal shakes his head slowly. “No,” and there’s that note of self-doubt in his voice again. “I had hoped to have you in all possible ways, but never expected to see that hope fulfilled. To have all that I had wanted now, after everything in our shared history, seems-”

“Untrustworthy.” Hannibal’s minor irritation at Will’s interruption is worth knowing that Will had picked the right term.

“Yes.”

Will moves closer to him under the covers until his chest is pressed to Hannibal’s side. “If, hypothetically, I was only playing a game now, what would that change? What would you do differently?”

Hannibal’s brow furrows in thought, and he mulls this over while Will slings his arm across his belly.

He shakes his head finally, a small movement and a wry smile. “Nothing,” Hannibal says. “I would do nothing differently. I’m content to have you, Will, in whatever way you’re willing to let me.”

Will smiles back, stretches to press a kiss against his hairline, and Hannibal turns his head. He looks at Will with wonder, and Will knows that tenderness and violence in turn has been their history for so long that it makes sense for Hannibal to be waiting for the other shoe to drop - in all honesty, Will isn’t entirely sure he isn’t expecting the same thing.

“You’ll just have to be patient, then,” Will whispers. “In time, you’ll see that I’m plotting nothing; I’ve got nothing up my sleeve.”

Hannibal chuckles, dark and low. “I doubt you’ve run out of tricks,” he says, but he shifts his body closer to Will’s, wraps his hand around Will’s forearm, relaxes. Will closes his eyes, his fatigue and the after effects of sex catching up with him.

“Maybe not. But I’m not planning to kill you.”

“I know.” Hannibal’s voice is so quiet Will has to open his eyes and watch his mouth move to make sure he catches the words.

“And that’s not what concerns you.”

Hannibal is silent.

“I’m not going to leave. But that’s another thing you’ll just have to be patient about. I’m not going to reject you, and I’m not going to leave.”

Hannibal searches his face in the dark, and whatever he finds there seems to satisfy him, at least for now.

“I’m tired,” Will says eventually. Hannibal turns fully to him, and they arrange themselves in a tangle of arms and legs, finally settling with Hannibal’s face pressed into Will’s neck and Will’s arm and leg draped over him.

It’s enough. Before Will drifts off, he listens to Hannibal’s breathing becoming quieter, his breaths coming slower, and considers that for all the wrongs they’ve done one another, they likely have more ahead of them. Logic tells him there’s no way for this to end except bathed in blood, spectacularly destroyed, all the promises they might make to one another broken for the sake of breaking things, and if either of them actually survives the collapse of this thing, it will be purely survival - facing life separated from the other half of himself, torn edges ripped so raggedly the bleeding will never stop. This is what Will knows to be the likely outcome of their becoming together, and he comforts himself that he can at least think rationally about it.

But another part of him, perhaps less to do with his mind and more to do with whatever is in him that longs for Hannibal, that wants to touch him tenderly and see him happy, that found him beautiful dripping in the blood of the Dragon - this part of Will thinks that maybe, just maybe, it doesn’t have to end in catastrophe. He handled Hannibal’s reluctance to touch him, after all; the man who’d been adverse to touch for as long as he can remember, reassuring with touch one of the most tactile people he’d ever known. Will had managed that alright, if present circumstances were anything to go by, and so maybe, just maybe, he could manage the rest.

Will slips easily into his memory palace, finds the field there that abutted his property in Wolf Trap. He takes the part of himself that believes he and Hannibal don’t have to be _that way_ together, not anymore, that they can transcend even themselves in the radiance of their joining. Will takes this bit of himself and wraps it in a chrysalis in his mind. All he can do is whisper through the thread-like cocoon, try to cultivate what he hopes to birth from it. What will be born or reborn of it, he knows he can’t predict. But he hopes, nevertheless, to be surprised.

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
